


Hopeless Wanderers

by sunkelles



Series: titaniumsansa's birthday-palooza [4]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fringe Fusion, Childhood Sweethearts, Episode s03e15: Subject 13, F/F, Fringe Spoilers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidfic, Snaibsel, zatannamis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-10-31 06:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10893462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: In one world, Zatanna Zatara dies in 1985 at 8 years old. After the fact, her father creates an antidote to the disease that killed her and dimension hopping technology. In another world, Zatanna Zatara is dying, and this Giovanni brings her to his own universe to save her.This has far reaching ramifications for all the Zataras, and for a little girl named Artemis Crock who gets caught in the crossfire.





	Hopeless Wanderers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [titaniumsansa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/titaniumsansa/gifts).



> 1\. happy birthday!  
> 2\. i know that you haven't finished fringe and don't necessarily want to, but since you really like "The Children That Nina Sharp Never Had" I decided to take a risk and write this. obviously this fic contains some major fringe spoilers. if any of you plan to watch it please don't read this yet. here there be dragons.  
> 3\. this is based heavily on the episode "Subject 13" until the end where it diverges completely.  
> 4\. there will be another chapter. it, hopefully, will not take me six months to write. unlike dead girl walking hahahahhahahaha i'm a terrible person and friend  
> 5\. there is a really awesome bit of dialogue in here taken from the fantastic fringe fic "ghost that we knew" which partially inspired this fic. if you search for that fic then the bit of dialogue is in its summary

Zatanna wakes up that morning and goes down to breakfast just like any other day. There’s already a bowl of her favorite cereal sitting at the counter, and a glass of apple juice. Zatanna sits down and takes a sip. The man that looks like her father takes a sip of his orange juice, and looks like he’s stealing himself. That’s not unreasonable really. They both know what’s coming next.

 "You're not my real father," Zatanna says, just like any other day. She’s said it for so many mornings now that it’s just a part of her daily routine. Get up. Accuse the man that looks like her father of kidnapping. Eat breakfast. Brush her teeth. Go to school. Repeat.

She knows that it sounds crazy. Everyone has told her that, from the man that looks like her father to the babysitters to the shrinks. But she knows that a man with her father's face who isn't quite him took her out of her room in the middle of the night, and that they fell through the lake into a world that's a little different than her own.

"You're right," he says. She sends him a confused look. He didn't really just say that, did he? That’s not how this goes. He’s messing up his lines.

“You’re right, I’m not your real father.”

“Is this a trick?” Zatanna asks.

“It’s not a trick, I promise. I’m just telling you the truth. We both know that.”

“Why did you take me?” Zatanna asks. Her not-father sighs.

“Do you remember how sick you were?” he asks. Of course Zatanna remembers. She was the one that was sick. It was awful. There were so many days that she couldn’t even get out of bed. Then her not-father came and brought her to this world, and she started to get better.

"My Zatanna died of the illness you were fighting,” he says, and she can hear the pain in his voice as he says this, “I had been watching _your_ father with you, and I realized that he would not be able to develop a cure in time to save you. I crossed over to your universe with a portal to deliver the antidote. I had to bring you here in order to give it to you.”

“That was the glowy thing on the lake,” Zatanna says. It was a portal, like in the cartoons that she watches on Saturday morning. She should have known that.

“Yes,” he says, the smile reaching his eyes, “that was the glowy thing.”

“Why didn’t you just do the glowy thing again to take me back?” Zatanna demands. That seems like a reasonable explanation. if it worked well the first time then there's no reason that he couldn't do it again, right? 

“What I did almost destroyed the universe, Zatanna,” he says, “I had to find another way to get you back.”

“But you’re taking me home?” She had thought- well, she thought that she’d be trapped here forever, in a universe that wasn't quite right. She never dreamed that he’d actually take her home.

“That was always the plan, Zatanna,” he promises her. Zatanna feels her heart speed up a little.

“You’re taking me home? For real?" 

“Yes.” he says, “you’re going home, Zatanna.”

That’s all that Zatanna needs to get in the car. Then, they drive. They drive, and Zatanna sleeps. They drive, and Zatanna reads. They drive, and Zatanna watches out the window. The scenery is all similar and dull until they come to a field of bright white tulips.

“I thought that tulips didn’t grow in Florida,” Zatanna says. She remembers something that her actual father said about tulips and warm climates.

“They don’t usually,” her almost father says, “those were genetically engineered to endure this climate.” He doesn’t sound impressed by that. He sounds a little angry.

“Is that bad?”

“I learned there are some things that we should not change, Zatanna,” he says. He’s talking about saving her, she knows. He said that nearly ripped the world apart to do it.

“Do you regret it?” She knows that it’s an awful question, and she isn’t sure that she wants to hear the answer.  
  
“What?”

“Saving me,” she says, her voice wobbling, “do you regret that?”

“Never,” he says, and she can hear a fierce determination in his voice, one that her real father only ever had for his work, never for her, “you are worth it, no matter the consequences.” And for a moment, Zatanna wishes that he weren’t taking her back.

Ten minutes later, they pull up to a building that looks like a school. He opens the door, and steps out of the car. Zatanna sits in confusion for a moment before she gets out too.

“I thought you were a scientist,” she says. Her father is a scientist too, but he owns his own company and she knows that he sells weapons to the government. She doesn't know what this version of her father does, really. He obviously doesn’t do that.

“This is my laboratory,” he says, sending her a toothy grin. They walk into the building, and there is brightly covered carpet and a little front desk. Past the front desk there are children's desks, little colored chairs and cubbies full of backpacks and jackets. The receptionist has a mug shaped like an apple with crayons on it. Every detail of this place screams daycare. 

“How is a daycare gonna get me home?” Zatanna demands.

“Please,” he says, “I’ll explain later. I must talk to a student. Carla, would you stay with her?” The lab assistant that has babysat her a few times nods, and her father leaves to meet with a student. Zatanna looks around the room at the little tables and the cubbies full of kids’ coats and book bags.

She sits down at one of the tables where a sketchbook is sitting. Zatanna doesn’t mean to pry, but when she sees a sketchbook sitting on the table she can’t exactly leave it be. She opens it up immediately.

There are lots of drawings in it, vivid crayon images with bright, burning emotions. A demon’s face, a field of tulips, and a sky full of zeplins. This world doesn’t have zeplins, but her world is full of them. The sky that she grew up under was _brimming_ with them.

Zatanna doesn’t know what this means, but she has a weird feeling in her stomach: a combination of surprise and fear. She knows that this person has been to her world. Somehow, she knows that they’re the way back. She’s not entirely excited to return.

* * *

 

 

 

The bell for recess rings, but Artemis just slumps back into her chair. She can’t be bothered to play today. Her whole body is sore, and half of her face is badly bruised. She just wants to pretend to be somewhere else, like the field that she ended up in a few days ago before getting these injuries, with the weird blimp things in the sky and no father in sight.

“Artemis?” Dr. Giovanni says. Artemis flinches. She hadn’t even noticed him coming up to her. She felt like she was in her own little world, and she feels a spark as she snaps back into focus.

“Sorry,” she says, instinctively. Her dad always wants an apology, no matter what. Even if Artemis hasn’t done anything wrong he still wants her to apologize for it,

“It’s alright,” Dr. Giovanni says gently, “you didn’t do anything wrong.” Artemis feels her body relax.

“What happened to your eye?” Then, she feels her body stiffen again.

“I fell into the door.”  
  
“Artemis-”

“I did,” she says. She can’t let Dr. Giovanni know what happens to her at home. He might not let her keep coming, and then the only good thing in her life will be gone. Then it will just be her and her dad. She can’t take that. She can’t even consider that. Dr. Giovanni doesn’t push after that.

"My daughter is here today," Dr. Giovanni says with a twinkle in his eye, "maybe you can meet her." Artemis smiles.

“I’d like that.” She’s heard him talk about his daughter before, and it’s always with a weird mix of sadness and pride. She doesn’t really know what to make of that.

“We have some tests to run first, though.”

 

They try to run a series of different tests, each more frustrating and random than the last: a frustrating puzzle, a scary movie, an excessive amount of boring alone time.

 

Then, the lights go out and it looks like one of her friends is dead on the ground. She’s scared, and it feels like the room explodes around her. Chairs go flying, and the light bulbs pop in the ceiling. She knows that she did that too. The boy stands up.

“I’m alright,” he says, “it was just a prank.” Artemis doesn’t know what’s happening, but she knows that she’s scared and that they’re never going to let her come back here again, and she runs out of the classroom and out of the building. 

“Artemis!” She keeps running, and she keeps running, and she keeps running until she finally reaches her happy place, the tulip field near the school. She sits down in the field, and tries not to think about the world going to shit around her.

 

She waits a long time in the field, trying to relax into her happy place. Suddenly, she hears the plants rustle in front of her, and she turns her head. A girl stands in the tulip field, holding _Artemis's_ sketchbook.

“Where did you get that?” Artemis demands. The girl blushes, and holds it out for Artemis to take.

“It was on the table. You’re a good artist, you know.” It’s Artemis’s turn to blush. She isn’t used to compliments, and she doesn’t really know how to deal with them. Instead, she deflects it.

“How did you find me?” The girl sits down beside her, and gestures to the sketchbook. Artemis opens it, and the first drawing she sees is of the tulip field.

“How did you know that I’d be here?” She drew a lot of things in that book.

"It's the only drawing that looked happy," the girl says. Well, the girl isn’t wrong. Artemis doesn’t have a ton of happy material to work with.

"My name's Artemis," she says cautiously. This is normally where people laugh at her. She knows that her name's long, and hard to say, and silly.

"I'm Zatanna," the other girl says. It makes Artemis smile because her name is long, and hard to say, and silly too. It makes her feel like they're in this terrible name thing together. 

"What happened?" Zatanna gestures vaguely, and Artemis knows that she's talking about the black eye, the one she's been lying about all day.

"My dad did it,” Artemis admits. She doesn’t know if she tells the truth because Zatanna is a fellow kid, or just because she’s tired of lying. It almost feels cathartic, though, to admit to out loud. It makes her feel a little less powerless.

“Your dad sounds like a jerk.” Zatanna says it like a curse word, which lets Artemis know that the girl doesn’t know any real ones. That's kind of cute honestly. 

"What's your dad like?" Artemis asks. She doesn’t think the girl’s dad can be that bad if she doesn’t know any word worse than jerk. Her dad has called her worse words than that for spilling a glass of milk.

"That's kinda complicated." Artemis doesn't know how complicated that question can be. He's either a bad dad or a good dad, there isn't anything in between. He's either like Artemis's dad or he isn't, and Artemis suspects that he isn’t. At the very least, she hopes that he isn’t. Zatanna seems like a nice girl. She doesn’t deserve a life like Artemis’s.

"Tell me about him."

"You're gonna think I'm crazy," Zatanna says.  

"Trust me, I won't." Zatanna raises her eyebrow, and it says one thing loud and clear: prove it.

"I think I've been to another universe," Artemis says. Zatanna's eyes widen. Artemis fears that she ruined it, that this girl who just started listening to her, that seems like she cares, will dismiss her as crazy now.

"I think I'm _from_ another universe," Zatanna says. Artemis laughs. She doesn’t mean to, and she knows that after her own confession it shouldn’t sound so crazy. It still does though, and the laugh escapes unbidden from her lips.

“I’m from the place with the zeplins,” Zatanna says. Artemis doesn’t know what that words means, but she has a suspicion.

“The blimps?”

“Yeah,” Zatanna says, “the blimps.” 

“Holy shi-----z,” Artemis says, correcting her language at the last possible second, “holy shiz.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about it,” Artemis says. She’s only been there once, right before her father gave her this black eye, but she knows that it exists. She knows that there must be more to it than a field of green and a sky full of blimps.

Zatanna tells her about how they have the Red Lantern instead of the Green one, and the Mantis instead of the Batman. She tells her about the pet badgers that her friends used to have and all the tiny little differences she’s noticed.

“What are the people like?” Artemis asks. She hopes that Zatanna’s universe is better than her own.

“All the people are the same, but a little different.”

“What does that mean?” Artemis asks. If someone is a clone, she’d think that they’d end up being exactly the same. She couldn’t imagine that there’s a her somewhere else who isn’t exactly like she is, the same shade of sad and lonely and scared.

“I have a dad there, and I have a different dad here. They look the same, but they act different.” Artemis doesn’t get it. Zatanna can see that.

“I think I like this one better," Zatanna says, sounding guilty. Artemis can’t blame her. If a different version of her dad showed up to take her away, and he acted like even a tiny bit less of a jackass, she’d go with him in a heartbeat.

"I wanted him to take me back, but now that he told me that he will I don't know that I want him to." Artemis doesn’t understand that, not really. She’s never been torn between two worlds. Maybe if Jade had offered to take her with her when she ran away, then she’d understand. But Jade left in the middle of the night after their mother died, and left Artemis alone with their father. She’s not sure that she’ll ever forgive her for that.

“What do you think?” Zatanna asks her. Well, Artemis knows what she’d suggest. If Zatanna thinks that this dad is nicer, she should stay. Especially since that means that they can see each other more. Artemis has never really clicked with someone before. She feels like she _knows_ Zatanna, even though they just met.

“You should do what makes you happy,” Artemis says. She might not think that Zatanna should go or want her to, but she can’t make that decision for her.

“So should you,” Zatanna says.

“What does that mean?”

“I mean that you could tell Jo- my dad, I think you should tell _my dad_ about your dad,”

“Wait, Dr. Giovanni’s your dad?” Zatanna nods. Artemis laughs.

“That explains some things.” Zatanna shrugs, like she doesn’t think that it explains anything at all. Artemis supposes that to her it doesn’t.  
  
“Do you think he could do anything?” Artemis asks. Even if he doesn’t kick her out of the program, even if he takes her side, Artemis doesn’t know what he could do.

"You should tell him," Zatanna tells her. Artemis nods. Zatanna’s holding out her hand right in between them, and Artemis takes it .She hopes that isn’t crossing any boundaries.

“You should too,” Artemis says. Zatanna squeezes, and Artemis thinks that’s a good sign. Then, it starts snowing. Snowing in _Florida_ , like some sort of cheesy movie. Zatanna smiles at her.

They keep holding hands as they walk back to the center. There are adults swarming outside the complex, looking for the two missing children. Zatanna marches straight up to one of them.

"Where is my dad?" Zatanna demands.

"He was out searching for you. You should wait here." Artemis isn’t about to wait until she loses the courage to do this.

"I know where his office is," Artemis tells her. Zatanna nods, and lets her lead her there. They burst into his office, and Dr. Giovanni is sitting at his desk in a white lab coat. This seems a little odd to Artemis because she’s never seen him wear one before. Zatanna squeezes her hand tightly.

Artemis slams her sketchbook onto the desk.

“My dad hits me,” she says, “and I’m scared when I go home, and the only place that I feel safe is here and I was afraid that you wouldn’t let me come back so I lied about it but I just- I can’t anymore. I just want it to stop.” Zatanna squeezes her hand again, a little tighter, and makes a strangled noise.

"Artemis," she hears Giovanni say _behind her_ , and she whips her head around. He's standing there in one of his signature brown sweaters, and he looks like he's been standing there the whole time. 

"You were sitting right there," Artemis says, turning back to the empty desk. She looks to the air beside her where Zatanna was, and squeezes the empty air.

“Zatanna was right there. She was holding my hand.” She can feel tears welling up in her eyes. This is- this is even worse than telling him. Giovanni puts a strong, comforting hand on her shoulder.

"You took her home," Giovanni tells her softly.

“No- I- I wasn’t _trying_ to,” Artemis says, “she didn’t want to go back.” Giovanni looks confused.

"She told me you wanted to send her back," Artemis says, "she didn't know if she wanted to go."

“This wasn’t her home, Artemis,” he says, “she’ll be happier back there, in her own world. That’s where she’s supposed to be.” Artemis wraps her arms around his waist, and holds him tightly. He hugs her back.

"I'm gonna miss her," Artemis says, tears streaming down her face.

"Yes," Giovanni says, his voice raw with emotion, "I am too.” Artemis didn't know her long, but she connected with her. She doesn't want to go back to living in a world without her in it, especially since that will be literal this time. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this was going to have another chapter but literally no one's ever read it so


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